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People accused in more than 100,000 misdemeanors each year go to jail without talking to a lawyer, a Lee Enterprises investigation found. The practice threatens people's constitutional right to counsel.
Experts say Arizona's Pima County soon won’t have enough public defenders to handle the cases being filed. “We’re hitting a crisis point,” one public defender said.
Across the West, public defense systems face crushing caseloads, historic under-funding, structural problems, and severe staffing shortages, imperiling criminal defendants’ lives and often denying them their constitutional right to counsel.
The Montana Office of the Public Defender is coming off one of its most tumultuous years since the agency was concentrated from county offices into an obligation of the state.
Experts say Arizona's Pima County soon won’t have enough public defenders to handle the cases being filed. “We’re hitting a crisis point,” one public defender said.